In Mr. Iglesias, to be aired on Netflix as of 21 June (and dubbed into Italian by 3Cycle), Nanni Baldini gives his voice to the lead character, the U.S. comedian Gabriel Iglesias. That’s no novelty for Nanni, who has already dubbed Adam Goldberg, Stewie Griffin and Donkey in Shrek. We asked him what tricks a dubber has up his sleeve and we found out that…
«I have a lot of tricks, but, obviously, if I revealed them to you, then I’d have to kill you… I can only say that I try to follow the actor I’m dubbing in all his movements, all his pauses, all his intentions, every time he takes a breath. It is a generally-held opinion that, in order to capture an actor’s soul, you must follow his eyes: but I follow the pace of their breathing. And it works for me. Remember that there is only one goal, regardless of the trick one might resort to: dubbing must be invisible to the eyes of the viewers; we must give them the entire film, from both a dramaturgical and semantic viewpoint. That might sound total nonsense, but it basically means that if the dubbing is done well, you will not realise that the film has been dubbed. And that’s something you can achieve only if you reach the perfect combination between the actual translation and the lip synch.
For example, take a comical product, such as Mr. Iglesias. The dubbing here requires a little extra effort: if you don’t pay the proper attention while dubbing it, you are likely to ruin the overall outcome. These dynamic, entertaining roles require a specific technical effort, aside from the mastering of the renowned comic timing. But these are simply tools that allow an actor to express his creativity, his innate comic flair. In dubbing, you must recreate them following the director’s intentions. Sure, it goes without saying that is the original series isn’t funny, dubbing could hardly make it so. In the case in point, however, I’d like to stress the fact that the series is actually very funny. The show clearly has a comical side to it, but it also addresses topical issues, such as ethnic integration (there’s a whole raft of jokes on the recent migration policy adopted by Trump’s administration to deal with the Mexicans) and it zeroes-in on minor teenage issues, experienced by the young protagonists in the several episodes of the series.»
